Firefox Will Benefit from Mozilla's Death

by Preston Gralla

There's good news for fans of Firefox -- the Mozilla Foundation announced late last week that it was halting development of the Mozilla browser suite. That foundation is the same group that oversees Firefox.

Why is this good news? Because the foundation had bit off more than it could chew. It simply didn't have the resources to continue developing both Mozilla and Firefox. The strains were beginning to show, and Firefox was about to start suffering because of it.

The foundation was slow in plugging Firefox security holes. When it did getting around to plugging them, the installation procedure for the new version of Firefox was something that Microsoft might even have blushed at. I won't go into the gory details, but take my word for it, in many cases it wasn't pretty.

Now that Mozilla development is being halted, we can expect that Firefox will again get the attention it deserves. The announcement couldn't have come at a better time, because Microsoft is hard at work in version 7 of Internet Explorer.

This is another piece of good news -- I'm hoping that version 7 of IE will be a significant improvement over the aged, insecure, and creaky current version. Between the competition between IE and Firefox, I think we'll see some real browser improvements over the next year.

Ah, browser wars nice to have them back again.

What do you think about the Mozilla Foundation's decision to stop Mozilla development?

9 Comments

alexvaldez
2005-03-15 17:15:01

Rincón
Why is IE7 code named rincón (Spanish for corner)?

Alkon
2005-03-16 03:31:56

Gralla's masquerade

You outright lie about Firefox being slow in security updates. They are lightning fast, especially if compared with Micro$oft's complete ignorance. Micro$oft is ignorant because they have their artificial monopolies installed with various patents, lawsuits and other artificial, legal devices - they call all that "innovation". This is of no surprise - ignorance ALWAYS comes where monopoly exists. The success of Firefox evidently shows how we all and industry suffer from monopolistic "innovation" of Micro$oft - people are fed up with what M$ monopoly self-proclaim as their "innovation" and industry suffers from M$'s monopolistic domination that leaves no room for creativity of many talented people.

This becomes evident that you, Gralla, a so-called "well-known technology expert", author of Windows XP Hacks, editor of WindowsDevCenter.com, a man with CV full of Windows and M$ staff, is paid by Micro$oft to say what you say, i.e. to lie what you lie, and you are the only one who thinks that your stupid tricks are not evident to people. Your livelihood, bread and butter every morning, depend on Micro$oft, and it is funny how you try to masquerade yourself into Firefox fun. This is such a war tactics (that only you think people do not see), just to say "I admire Firefox very, very much, I am a BIG fun of it, but (and then come poisonous lies) look how bad FF is, and also how good M$ is with its rainbow plans". It will also be fun to see how you will try to wash out your dirty reputation later.

aaronhathaway
2005-03-16 06:50:21

Gralla's masquerade

This is such a war tactics (that only you think people do not see)...but (and then come poisonous lies) look how bad FF is, and also how good M$ is with its rainbow plans". It will also be fun to see how you will try to wash out your dirty reputation later.

This has the ring of a North Korean propaganda piece: sort of awkwardly vicious and overly dramatic. Makes me almost ashamed of being a Firefox fan if this is my compatriot. Ugh. Time to wash out my "dirty reputation" and "rainbow plans[?]"...

TimmMurray
2005-03-16 07:08:30

Gralla's masquerade
Please calm down. Your misplaced advocacy does us all a great disservice.

Alkon
2005-03-17 04:24:21

Gralla's masqueradePlease calm down. Your misplaced advocacy does us all a great disservice.

Us? Please, speak for yourself. Or explain what you mean by "us"?

On my side, I am not involved in any advocacy group, I speak for myself ONLY. And I can say, what I have said, once again.

Alkon
2005-03-17 04:49:14

Gralla's masqueradeThis has the ring of a North Korean propaganda piece: sort of awkwardly vicious and overly dramatic. Makes me almost ashamed of being a Firefox fan if this is my compatriot. Ugh. Time to wash out my "dirty reputation" and "rainbow plans[?]"...

Hah. Don't you think that calling my comment the "North Korean propaganda piece" is itself "awkwardly vicious and overly dramatic". My dear North Korean compatriot, don't be ashamed, I am not a Firefox fan yet. I still use M$ IE, damn it.

Gralla's masquerade
When I talk to hardcore Microsoft developers and admins, they always snear at the unbridled zealotry of some Linux/Mozilla fans. And when I see comments like the above, I'm forced to do the same.

People are immediately turned off to that kind of advocacy, even if everything said is true. If your goal is to get people away from Microsoft, then there are much more effective ways of doing it.

Might I suggest Why I Hate Advocacy? It's focused on the Perl community, but much of it applies to the Open Source community at large.

aristotle
2005-03-24 13:37:02

Gralla's masquerade
Please do the Firefox advocates a favour and stop giving them a bad name. Just shut up.

If you can't make a point without frothing at the mouth, don't say anything.

aristotle
2005-03-24 13:43:20

Slow?
Where did you get the slow from? Security fixes are as quick as ever. The problem is that the update procedure is a minor disaster, as you pointed out, so fixes dont trickle down to people as quickly as they are available. There is some amount of noise among the developers as they are currently working on it.

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